How Defining Abnormality May Differ

Abnormality Varies with Culture and Time:

Cultural Relativism - judgements made about abnormality are relative to individual cultures ie. we may see normal differently.

Important whether to work out if abnormality is Absolute (occuring in the same way and frequency across cultures), Universal (present in all cultures but not with same frequency), or Relative (unique to a particular culture).

Mental conditions are absolute.

Social Norms vary with culture.

Depression is universal - occurs in all cultures but mostly with women.

Defining Abnormality may be biased:

Gender Stereotypes, Racial Stereotypes.

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The Biological Model

...assumes Psychological disorders are Physical Illnesses caused by:

Genetics

Neurotransmitters

Infection

Brain Injury

Biological therapies: Drugs, Psychosurgery, Electroconvulsive Therapy

+ scientific basis in biology and a lot of evidence showing biological causes can produce psychological symptoms, seen as ethical as people are not blamed for their disorders, the therapies have helped relieve conditions.

- raise ethical concerns (drugs supress symptoms rather than cure), they may not be linked!

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Research into the Biological Model

Gottesman

Meta-analysis of 40 twin studies.

Having an identical twin with schizophrenia gave you 48% chance of developing the condition, 17% with non-identical twins.

Schizophrenia has a strong genetic basis.

Eval: field studies - high ec. valid., being treated the same - family environment may influence behaviours.

Go through each stage of the hierarchy one by one while being encouraged to relax - relaxation and anxiety cannot happen at the same time so this is repeated until the feared event is associated with relaxation.